I was going to this restaurant with high expectations. It did not live up to them. Excellent…read morepresentation. Extensive wine list. Polite staff. Food was good but not spectacular. Tortellini dish was just barely warm. But main thing that shocked me was desert issue. I did not like it and left it almost untouched. When manager saw it he went a long way to understand why I did not eat it. When I said that there was nothing wrong with the desert and it was just my personal preference he lost any concern or interest. You would expect in such high end place they would offer replacement to satisfy the client. What it would cost them, five Euro? Nope, nothing like that. They did not care. Therefore three stars and not coming back or recommending to anyone.

We saw that they could arrange a private truffle hunt - definitely arrange this ahead of time…read more When we arrived at 9:30am, they had water and some sweets and cookies laid out very nicely for us. We were greeted by the owner, the manager (?), our truffle hunger, and our interpreter. The truffle hunt was €30 a person, and the interpreter was €40 an hour (2 hour hunt), which was well worth it. Her English was perfect, and she could help explain everything the truffle hunters were saying in both Italian and Piedmontese. We learned a ton about truffles and the process. We drove out about 10-15 min away to a random area and were surprised that the dogs started sniffing and finding stuff right away. It was a drought year, which explains the outrageous prices, but they found some black ones and some tiny white ones. There ended up being two truffle hunters and their loyal dogs, and they just train dogs and do this for the love of it - not just to sell to restaurants. If you wanted, you could pay for the truffles that were found, but they were honest and said the quality wasn't great. It was a super educational experience and seemed better than the more expensive one offered by the Fiera de Tartufo. After the hunt, we had some time to walk around town before lunch. When we came back in, the dining room was about half full by 12:30pm, completely full after that. We started with a basket of bread, crackers, and grissini all made in house - I loved the lingua cracker (like the Rustic Bakery ones in the US). Then, they brought over some house made butter and soft focaccia. We opted for a Riserva from Coppo next door, which is a big local producer in Canelli. It's too bad we didn't get to go see their famous underground cellars. To start (on the house): Puréed cauliflower with a soft cooked quail egg, topped with white truffle - possibly my favorite dish. The tasting menu is incredibly reasonable at €55 per person (they also had a la carte and a €45 option). We opted to skip truffles since we had been eating them at every meal, but it seems like everyone else was going all out with truffles. Tasting (degutazione): €55 1. Veal tartare: with a marinated egg yolk and an amazing balsamic reduction. This was great with the long lingua cracker. 2. Fondue: with porcini and crispy bread - I've never had such big fresh porcini mushrooms before - they were generous on the mushrooms. The cheese was great 3. Tajerin: served table side. I regretted not adding truffles since the buttery noodles were basically made as a vehicle for truffles 4. Risotto: quite al dente. I liked the sauce - a jus/reduction drizzled in. It was served with a roasted cardoon. In the end, I couldn't finish all of the rice 5. Lamb: I actually wanted something lighter and got a seasonal zucca (pumpkin soup) as a substitution, which I was happy with. I did try the lamb. It was on the saltier side but wasn't too gamey 5. Cheese plate: at this point, I was so full (and jet lagged), but they made me a small plate with local cheeses and house made marmalade's (all very interesting using local seasonal produce). When we went to pay up front, they had a nice tray of chocolates, chocolate truffles, torrino, cookies for us by the door to nibble on. In the end, for the truffle hunt, interpreter, meal, and very nice bottle of wine, it was about €300 for 2 of us. Service was very polite, we never felt rushed, and I thought the truffle hunt experience was pretty unique and awesome. They do speak English in the restaurant. The drive was about 40 min from Alba. I would definitely recommend driving out here for the truffle hunt experience (5 stars) and the lunch (a great value for a Michelin starred place).

one of the best restaurant in piemonte. real piedmontese food, great service, great wine list,…read morefantastic food. of course i strong recommend.

If my review was only based on the pastas, this would be a definite 5. The wine list was amazing…read more The secondis were good but slightly unmemorable compared to the rest of the meal. A solid 4.5 stars but that pasta definitely rounds it up to a 5 Situated in the tiny commune of San Marzano Oliveto, 20 minutes south Asti and set amongst the rolling hilltops of the Langhe, Bardon has all of the trappings of a classic, rustic Piedmontese restaurant. However, the modest, unassuming farmhouse exterior belies an interior which turns out a remarkable caliber of cuisine. Upon entering the restaurant, it was obvious that we were one of the first diners to arrive, as the staff was still hurrying to set up the dining room. However, a hostess quickly appeared, found our reservation and then led us to our table, a roomy two-top in one of the dining rooms. It was clear that the dining room we were in was once the exterior of the house but had since been walled-in and covered. It was bright and airy and had a great view of the Langhe landscape. While there is a menu available, we didn't see a single table ordering from one during the entire meal. Instead, servers came table-side and recited the day's specials, though it seemed as if the majority of diners already knew their order before hearing a word of it. Thankfully our server knew enough English to bridge the gap on the dishes we didn't recognize; however, we did have a casual look at the menu halfway through the meal, just to make note of what we had ordered. Since we had been consuming Barolo all weekend (and, when you're staying next door, why wouldn't you), Adam decided to go with a Barbera d'Asti as a change of pace. The wine list (really more of a wine book) at Bardon is massive, spanning dozens of pages with an impressively vast inventory of Piedmont wines, some stretching to vintages decades ago. We went with the 2008 Cantine Scrimaglio "Acse," a Barbera d'Asti Superiore. Due to the fantastic carne cruda we enjoyed two days earlier at Il Centro in Priocca, we knew we wanted to try Bardon's version. The carne cruda di vitello battuta a coltello (€7.00 = $8.00) was a great choice. As our 2+ hour meal continued, we noticed that every single table at the restaurant ordered this dish, usually one per person. The meat was very finely chopped and didn't have any of the gaminess that can sometimes permeate through with veal. We each received a dish of carne crudo and then a bottle of olive oil and salt and pepper grinders were left on the table for us to add to customize the dish to our liking. The meat was fantastic on its own, but a quick drizzle of olive oil and a few twists of salt and pepper really brought it to another level. After the excellent carne crudo, pastas were up next. We had read a number of great things about Bardon's plin, with some touting it as the best plin in the Piedmont area, so of course we had to try it. I ordered the raviolini del plin al burro e salvia (€9.00 = $10.50) - plin with butter and sage - and was not disappointed. The plin were incredibly light with a smooth meat filling. The plin had been delicately tossed in a butter and sage sauce that had an earthy essence of sage. This was so incredibly good, yet so simple, that I questioned why I hadn't had it more times in my life. The really great thing at Bardon is that when you order a pasta, they bring out a heaping (read: enough for two) serving and tell you to let them know when you would like them to stop serving. As I was trying to be polite, I did ask them to stop before the whole bowl was emptied. What a mistake! As the meal progressed, we noticed that every other diner, when told to let the server know when to stop serving pasta, just let them serve the whole large portion. Don't be polite, take the whole serving! Definitely our biggest regret of our lunch. While my pasta was fantastic, Adam's was somehow even better. The tagliolini al sugo di funghi porcini (€10.00 = $11.50) - tajarin with porcini mushrooms - was nothing short of incredible. Adam declared it to be the best pasta he had ever eaten. The earthiness of the porcini mushrooms imbued every single strand of the tajarin. The pasta was al dente, and while it wasn't the most delicate tajarin we had eaten that weekend, it stood up to the heftiness of the mushrooms perfectly. There was the option to have white truffles (tartufo, €30.00/gram = $35.00) shaved on top; but, in all honesty, we were getting a bit truffled out after three days. After finishing the two amazing pastas, our secondis arrived. While both veal dishes were fine, it was impossible for them to meet the impossibly high bar set by the pasta dishes. Both Adam and I enjoyed the veal, however, on our next visit we will order two more pasta courses in place of secondis. For the rest of the review: http://adamandvivian.com

Have eaten here twice over the past year and was glad to return. Very friendly proprietor/chef…read morealways looking to stop for a chat and typically offers a nightcap as you pay and look to leave. The food is straightforward, well cooked and full of flavour. The wines are mainly local (Asti) and if you're not familiar with them, there are some very good reds. If you're in town, I recommend you eat here. The owner has a separate B&B which may be worth enquiring about too.

We were disappointed in several ways. We ordered spaghetti with anchovy sauce. Loved the sauce but…read morethe spaghetti was barely cooked. We didn't send it back as we thought the Michelin star chef should know how to cook pasta and probably we were mistaken. The $30 salad was quite good, although it was a little surprising when we had to mix our own salad dressing. My wife had scallops that were good but probably a little underdone. I had a crispy veal dish that was very small with a nice crispy surface, rare to raw on the inside, plus several pieces were very tough and chewy. The wine list is as large as the phonebook of many American cities with populations of 250,000 or more. We ordered a very expensive barolo wine from 2004, a great year by reputation. I can't fault the restaurant for the taste of the wine, but it too was a disappointment, probably greater than the meal itself. We felt like we paid three times the price of most of our meals and enjoyed it about 1/3 as much.

Antica Torre is a small intimate Italian Trattatoria restaurant located at the foot of the…read moreBarbaresco Tower in Barbaresco, Italy, one block from Gaya. The kitchen is run by the owner who serves the dishes herself along side her staff; she makes the best Angolotti del plin in the Region, as well as delicious beef tartar, vitello tonnato, and tarajin pasta in a ragu. Of course you can find all the great wines of the Piedmont Region on the wine list. You will not find many tourists here; mostly locals. This is a restaurant not to be missed. Reservations required. Highly recommended.

"Mystic Kingdoms of Wine - Antica Torre, Barbaresco"…read more I use the Mystic Kingdoms of Wine term to refer to places that combine wine production facilities with first class hotel and restaurant. Although this is not strictly the case of Antica Torre, it is located one block from the Gaja winery and is sorrounded by the Barbaresco vineyard hills. Great local wine selection, very good food an service, nice atmosphere.